Helping Children Learn the Real Reason for Easter

Through all the fun and anticipation of Easter - bunnies, chicks, chocolates, jellybeans & baskets are everywhere. They seem to take over the holiday.

I like to take the time to talk to the Lil Divas about the reason we celebrate Easter - Jesus.  They are still young and of course I do not want to tramautize them by over emphasizing the tragedy of the crucifixion but I strongly feel that they should be introduced to the story - just in a way they can digest it.

Over Christmas we took the girls to watch their first Christmas Pageant and they saw the story of the crucifixion as part of it. They were talking about it for weeks and it really impacted them.

Now that Easter is upon us - I have been re-introducing the idea planted during the Christmas Pageant & Holiday Season.

In order to facilitate discussion and introduce the true Easter Story we have read the following books:

All of these stories emphasize the story of  Jesus - some are very simple and basic, the last one is a bit more detailed but even it glossed over the crucifixion so no need to worry.

Do you have any good Easter book recommendations? Now that the Lil Divas are getting a bit older for board books - they are fond of reffering to them as baby books these days - I am on the lookout for books that tell the Easter Story with a bit more detail but are still appropriate for their age group.

If you have any suggestions please be sure to comment - thanks!

We also worked on a cute "Stained Glass" Cross Craft:

What You Need:
white construction paper or cardstock
black construction paper
colored tissue paper
glue
scissors
cross template

What To Do:
1. Cut up the colored tissue paper into small squares
2. Cut out a cross template using the white paper.
3. Cut out a larger sized cross out of the black paper.
4. Glue the tissue paper squares to the white cross - encourage covering all the white - even if it overlaps. If you look at the picture above of the 2 crosses you will see the one on the left looks alot better bc my oldest covered up all the paper - it looks really good in the window!

5. Glue the white cross on top of the larger black cross & behold your faux stain glass cross!

This was a simple craft that looks really cute displayed on our windows!

How are you introducing and/or keeping Jesus in Easter with your family?

Bern

**I have linked this to Childhood 101 - We Play!, Sharing Time,  Get Crafty,  Read, Explore, Learn , For the Kids Friday, and Preschool Corner **